Centre may use Aadhaar to return child dropouts to school

The Centre may use Aadhaar database to track and  return  children dropping out of school.

A high level committee, headed by Union School Education Minister Upendra Kushwaha, has recommended this strategy.

To track down children, who have dropped out of school, the committee suggested that all children in the age group of 5-14 years  are enrolled for Aadhaar number.

To achieve this, the panel said the ministries of Human Resource Development, Women and Child Development and Labour and Employment must work together with the states.

"The creation of database of all children, including out of school children, using UID (Aadhaar) will facilitate the local authorities to maintain record of the children as mandated under Section 8 of RTE Act," the committee noted.

The database would also help return dropouts to school as mandated under Section 9 of RTE Act, it said.

"Parents of such children can be approached by the local authorities and motivated to re-admit their wards in school. Once a child is motivated to join school, authorities should change their status from out of school child to in-school child in the database and ensure that all facilities of schooling remain available to such children at par with other children from day one," it added.

Migrant children

The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), the highest advisory body to the Central and State governments, constituted the committee under Kushwaha   at its meeting in August 2015, to suggest measures for retaining children in schools and returning dropouts.

According to various reports, at least 70-80 lakh children are still out of schools. The numbers may go up if data on children of   migrant labour in unorganised sector is collected.

"States should conduct joint surveys to identify out of school children in convergence with the HRD Ministry, WCD Ministry and Labour and Employment Ministry. The survey should be conducted by the district collector or CEO (chief executive officer) of Zilla Parishad," the CABE suggested.